Joe Swindell, Convicted of Ruining Little Girl, Who Got HIs 1-Year Sentenced Pardoned, Wants $100,000, Feb. 12, 1926

Wants $100,000 After Ruining Little Girl. . . Joe Swindell’s Suit Against J.D. Farrior Is for That Amount

Joe Sweindell, who got a bullet in his inwards and a 30-year sentence to the State Prison for ruining one young girl too many, is back from the State Prison on a furlough this week, asking a Pasquotank Jury to allow him $100,000 for the gunshot wound.

Swindell was sentenced in Nov. 1924 and committed to prison last March after the Supreme Court had denied his appeal for a new trial. Joe was a gay young Sheik in Elizabeth City and boasted of his success with the feminine. One night he induced the pretty little 13-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L.C. Blades to accompany him on an automobile ride. Out in the quiet country, in the privacy of a dark church yard, he committed a criminal assault upon that pretty little child.

While he was awaiting trial in the Pasquotank County jail, the aged grandfather of the little girl, J.D. Farrior of Wilson, N.C., came to town broken with grief and crazed with indignation. Farrior walked quietly into the jail one morning while court was in session, asked for Swindell and fired a shot into the vitals of the young man at close range, thru the bars of the jail cell. Swindell was nearly mortally wounded and laid at the point of death in a local hospital for weeks.

Farrior was tried for assault and given a sentence of a year in prison, but was later pardoned by the Governor. Now Swindell thinks he ought to have $100,000 damages from Farrior. He is represented in his suit by E.F. Aydlett. The State Prison authorities permitted Swindell to come back to Pasquotank under guard to prosecute his suit. The case is expected to open in the Superior Court here today.

From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., February 12, 1926

newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn83025812/1926-02-12/ed-1/seq-1/

$100,000 in 1926 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1,831,197.74 today, an increase of $1,731,197.74 over 100 years. The dollar had an average inflation rate of 2.95% per year between 1926 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 1,731.20%.

This means that today's prices are 18.31 times as high as average prices since 1926, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index. A dollar today only buys 5.461% of what it could buy back then. www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1926?amount=100000